It is a problem in the field of wireless communications to manage the wireless services provided to passengers who are located in an aircraft as they roam among cell sites in the non-terrestrial cellular communication network, as well as to provide continuity and/or completion of these services when the passenger transitions to the terrestrial cellular communication network.
In the field of wireless communications, it is common for a wireless subscriber to move throughout the area served by the network of their home cellular service provider and maintain their desired subscriber feature set. Feature set availability throughout the home network is managed by the home cellular service provider's database, often termed a Home Location Register (HLR), with data connections to one or more switches (packet or circuit), and various ancillary equipment, such as voicemail and short message servers, to enable this seamless feature set management.
If the wireless subscriber were to transition inter-network, from the coverage area of their home cellular network to a network of the same or another cellular service provider (termed “roaming cellular service provider” herein), the wireless subscriber should have the ability to originate and receive calls in a unified manner, regardless of their location. In addition, it should be possible for a given wireless subscriber's feature set to move transparently with them. However, for this feature set transportability to occur, there needs to be database file sharing wherein the home cellular service Home Location Register (HLR) transfers the subscriber's authorized feature set profile to the roaming cellular service provider's database, often called a Visitor Location Register, or VLR. The VLR then recognizes that a given roaming wireless subscriber is authorized for a certain feature set and enables the roaming cellular service provider network to transparently offer these features to the wireless subscriber. In this manner, the roaming wireless subscriber retains the same authorized feature set, or “subscriber class”, as they had on their home cellular service provider network.
When wireless subscribers enter the non-terrestrial cellular communication network (that is, they fly in an aircraft as passengers), they encounter a unique environment that traditionally has been disconnected from the terrestrial cellular network, where the wireless network of the aircraft interfaces the wireless subscriber (also termed “passenger” herein) to various services and content. The aircraft wireless network, therefore, can function as a content filter or can create unique types of content that are directed to the passengers who are onboard the aircraft. The continuity and/or completion of these content delivery services when the aircraft reaches its destination before the entirety of the selected content is delivered to the passenger has yet to be addressed in existing terrestrial cellular communication networks. One such content delivery service is the provision of what is termed in the field as “in-flight movies” as well as other multi-media or data content. Once the aircraft lands at the destination, the delivery of this content is terminated and the passenger is unable to retrieve the remainder of this content.